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Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Government nearly falls over conversion spat, then cuts off nose to spite face

The Jewish Home party vented its anger over a bill that would remove power over conversions from the Chief Rabbinate by having all its non-minister MK's walk out of a no-confidence vote. After the government survived the no-confidence vote by four votes, the coalition chairman removed all of the Jewish Home's bills from the agenda, including party leader Naftali Bennett's bill to lower food prices.
A Bayit Yehudi spokesman explained that the party's MKs walked out on Bennett's instructions, after a new article was added to the controversial conversion bill without the party's prior knowledge.
"The Bayit Yehudi never learned coalition discipline or commitment to agreements," Levin said following the walkout. "I will not give in to extortion."
On Tuesday, a fierce political fight broke out between Bayit Yehudi and its coalition partners over the bill on reforming the conversion process, authored by MK Elazar Stern of Hatnua.
The bill proposes to allow chief municipal rabbis to establish a rabbinical conversion court in conjunction with one of the centrally appointed rabbinical conversion judges and any other rabbi ordained by the Chief Rabbinate.
A senior Bayit Yehudi source said on Tuesday that “if [ Justice Minister Tzipi] Livni was promised that her party’s conversion bill would pass in exchange for voting for the three major bills [ultra-Orthodox conscription, electoral reform and referendum on land concessions], then that was an unfounded promise. We’re sorry someone made a promise to her, but it’s not our problem.”
The source added that party will vote against the coalition if the Stern conversion bill goes to the plenum.
“A conversion bill will not pass without the support of the Religious Services Ministry,” the source said.
Which paragraph in this bill did the Jewish Home party not know about

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2 Comments:

At 5:00 PM, Blogger Red Tulips said...

Why exactly does the government have its filthy hands in the business of converting Jews? This should be done solely by rabbis who have received not a penny of compensation from the government (as it is done in the USA).

In other words, I believe the American system of separation of synagogue/church/mosque from state is the best system for every country on earth, including both Israel and all Islamic states.

When you lack such separation you inherently corrupt BOTH the synagogue and the state.

It is good for Judaism and makes Israel a MORE Jewish state to cease and desist paying salaries to rabbis.

To this extent I do not support Livni's bill to expand conversions as I do not support softening the effects of the rabbinate. I support abolishing this completely.

 
At 7:54 AM, Blogger Shy Guy said...

Red, because Israel is a Jewish state.

Asked and answered.

And if you don't like that, you can drink the waters of the Hudson. :)

 

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